Greensword101: Iron is resistant to magic much as rubber is resistant to electricity. It makes them good insulators for their respective energies. No, the spell Jen used on Hermione won't kill her if she acts against Jen; it literally keeps her from planning to do so.

Secundum: Trionfante is actually another reference to A Practical Guide to Evil, where there is a historical figure named the Dread Empress Triumphant who had an army of undead. For the purposes of this story, yes she was a soul mage.

This chapter has one of those emotional scenes that is hard to read. It was no easier to write.

Chapter 25
Recovery

A roar like a dragon's rattled the hallway, and Gabriella raised one eyebrow at Dora. "What did you say your cousin had planned for her distraction, again?"

"I didn't ask." Mostly because Dora had seen Jen's expression whenever the distraction was hinted at, and she knew that any answers she got would be either lies or truths she would have been happier not knowing. That was the problem with having a known and active dark witch in the family. "I don't think she was talking about bringing a dragon over, though."

"Savage, Tonks. Mouths shut, eyes front." Both Aurors turned their attention back to Robards and the corridor they and the other four Aurors were sneaking through. "Nielsen, next corridor."

Dora kept her mouth shut, not that she was happy about it. This was the kind of operation where she would much prefer to have people she trusted at her back, but unfortunately it was also a big enough operation that the only people Bones would permit to lead it were Scrimgeour, the head of the DMLE, and Robards, the Chief Auror. Scrimgeour she would have followed to the gates of hell and back.

Robards she had her concerns about. He was incredibly by-the-book, inflexibly so, and not the kind of person she preferred leading a mission where one false move could get them all killed or worse.

Nielsen slipped ahead slightly and cast a spell to let him peek around the corner without sticking his head out into cursing range. "Silent as the grave, boss, just as we expected."

No one had to think very hard to figure out why. Jen's distraction was proceeding as planned, but that did not mean they could dawdle. They needed to find Slughorn and get him out before they ran out of time.

This infiltration had been a joint effort between the Aurors and the Unspeakables, and while the cloaked and faceless researchers had been characteristically tight-lipped about their work, they had been forced to explain at least some of the details. This castle Voldemort had claimed was apparently protected from scrying or any other method of remote viewing, so instead of looking for him directly the Unspeakables had assembled a couple of teams to constantly keep eyes on individual Death Eaters who were not so well protected. It had taken time, but eventually one of the Death Eaters they were watching had Apparated to just outside the castle and given the Unspeakables the chance to look everywhere but the castle and figure out where it was.

That was the easy part. The hard part was finding Slughorn, and that was left to the Aurors, although the Unspeakables had still leant a hand there, too. When Robards had been picked to lead the mission, he had been given a fat, pale grey candle that the Unspeakables refused to light until it was time for them to move out. That candle was their skeleton key, enchanted to shield a small area from any and all wards so they could slip in and out without being noticed. The downside was that said shield only lasted as long as the candle burned, and the more people within its effect the faster the wax melted.

Hopefully, between Jen distracting the guards and the candle befuddling the wards, they would be in and out before anyone knew they were there. All that had to happen was for nothing to go wrong.

"Wish we had a map," she muttered to herself. That was the worst part of this infiltration; they were on the clock and yet were reduced to blind searching, their eyes constantly checking the candle to make sure it had not guttered out.

Lady Luck must have heard her, because the next corner Nielsen checked led to another corridor, this one covered with doors on each wall. "Keep together," Robards ordered. "We'll check them two at a time. Don't go too far away from me."

The corridor was narrow enough that no one had to take too many steps to open the doors and look inside. On the plus side, behind the doors were tiny rooms that would definitely qualify as medieval prison cells. On the minus side, they were empty.

Were there multiple prisons in this castle? Was Slughorn not kept prisoner here in the castle? Was he kept prisoner here but was at the moment working in some potions lab under Death Eater guard?

…Was he even a prisoner at all, or was he perhaps working with the Death Eaters of his own free will? Snakes of a scale slithered together, after all.

Dora banished that ugly thought just in time for Sizemore to open another door and take a quick step back. "Found him," she said with a relieved grin.

She had never met Horace Slughorn personally, but they had all looked at pictures of the man so they would know who they were searching for. This did not match those pictures in the slightest. Instead of an obese old man with a glorious and well-groomed mustache, the figure in the cell had stick-thin limbs and a disheveled beard hiding his lower face. He still had excess weight hanging in front of him, so he was not completely emaciated, but it was clearly only the last remnants of a much bigger belly that was slowly losing the fight against starvation.

Robards slipped into the cell, the other Aurors following closely, and knelt on the floor next to where the old man lay. "Horace Slughorn?"

The voice roused the man, and he looked up at the steel-haired Chief Auror. "…You aren't a Death Eater," he finally said in a soft, slow voice, almost as though he were confused about whether what he saw was real or a dream.

"Minister Amelia Bones sends her regards. She thought you might be here. We're taking you back to Hogwarts with us."

"Hogwarts…? Yes. Hogwarts." Slughorn rolled onto his back and lifted hands that were bound together with iron manacles. "But…"

Gabriella jabbed her wand at the manacles with a whispered "Alohamora," and the shackles popped open and fell to the ground. She gave Dora and Sizemore, the two youngest Aurors present, a wink. "Never underestimate the basics."

Nielsen and Proudfoot lifted the elderly professor, and that motion stirred his thoughts again. "The boy. The boy."

"What?" asked Robards. He looked just as confused as Dora felt at the sudden statement. "What boy?"

"The boy. Bring the boy. He screams. No boy should scream like that."

Slughorn could not tell them where this boy of his was, but he could and did point them in the vague direction the supposed screams came from. From there it was just a matter of checking the rest of the cells. Dora did not say what she thought of being sent on this wild goose chase, but she easily found those same thoughts on her team's faces. There was no boy. More likely than not, Slughorn had simply snapped—

"Bloody fuck!" shouted Nielsen as he staggered backwards.

Aurors were made of stern stuff, had to be, but what was waiting for them within that cell was still enough to push Dora to her limits. The brown-haired boy – emaciated and crusted in dirt and blood and filth – did not look up at the sound of the door opening. He did not move from where he was slumped against the back wall. Dora forced her bile down at the sight of such gruesome mutilation. Part of her wondered who this poor sod could possibly be.

The other part had a damned good idea and was terrified she might be right.

Savage swallowed loudly, the sound almost seeming to echo in the little stone room. "Kid? Hey, kid? Can you hear me?"

The voice was enough to rouse him slightly, and he finally tilted his head up. Dora felt her hair go completely white when she met his dull green gaze. After a few seconds, he dropped his head back to his chest.

"We have to move, people," reminded Robards with a look at the candle. "We have less time with eight of us compared to six. Savage, Tonks, bring him with us. Thank Merlin he isn't chained to the wall," the Chief Auror muttered, but not lowly enough to go unheard in this small space.

Probably because nobody needed to chain him up. This wasn't a dangerous prisoner; it was a shell of a human being.

With a steadying breath, she reached down and helped Gabriella pick up what was left of Danny Potter.

"More essence of dittany."

Severus handed Poppy another vial, barely taking his eyes off Slughorn in the process. The Dark Lord and the Death Eaters had not been kind to his old professor. Slughorn had obviously been starved, but once the dirty smock had been taken off it became clear that he had also been beaten. Not recently, and not constantly if Poppy's diagnostics were to be believed, but it had still occurred.

Why? That was the question that would not stop rolling around in his head. Horace Slughorn was one of Britain's premier potioneers. Why would the Dark Lord permit him to be tortured when he was so necessary?

"Sev… rus…"

He blinked his eyes clear and focused on Slughorn's face. The old man had been unconscious just a few minutes ago, but now his eyes were open. "Severus. It's all right."

"Worry about yourself, Professor. I'm not the one who spent months as the Dark Lord's prisoner." The end of that statement sent a shiver down the man's spine, and his eyes grew distant as he no doubt began remembering the tortures he had gone through. Almost against his will, Severus dropped his hand on top of Slughorn's to give the old man something to focus on. "Why were you mistreated so? It is foolish to injure the same man they needed to work over a cauldron. If—"

His words were interrupted by a dry, mocking laugh. That laugh devolved into a coughing fit, but still a smile stayed on Slughorn's face. "Oh, dear boy. That was why. I refused. You-Know-Who wanted potions of all sorts. Poultices. Poisons. Luck. I refused. His men beat me for that. I would be treated with kindness, he said. All I had to do was do what he told me." Slughorn shook his head. "No. Better to die than murder others."

Poppy bent down and patted his other hand. "It was a brave thing you did."

Severus on the other hand could only stare in shock. Slughorn was many things, but 'brave' was generally not the description he would associate with the old brewer. Ambitious, clever, resourceful? Yes. Lazy, gluttonous, prideful; absolutely. Threatened with pain, Severus honestly would have thought Slughorn would fold like a castle made of paper. Not spend six months being abused and standing resolute throughout it all regardless.

The thin curtain hanging around the bed was pulled open, and a young Auror and a scribe slipped inside. "My apologies for bothering you," the woman in the scarlet cloak said, "but if you're up to it, Mr. Slughorn, we would like to ask you for some of the details about your time in You-Know-Who's headquarters. Any information you can provide that would assist in his defeat would be greatly appreciated."

Slughorn coughed again but waved off Poppy's attempts at ministration. "I'd rather get it over with. Easier to sleep if I've already told them."

Severus tried to pull away, but his hand was now clasped within Slughorn's. His old professor gave him a look, a wordless plea, and he propped his hip on the bed frame.

He owed a great deal to the wizard beside him, not that he would ever admit it. Providing… moral support… was justified recompense, he supposed.

'They found your son.'

There was little Lily could remember between now and hearing that news. She knew she all but flew across the miniature town that had sprouted up on the castle grounds. She knew she ran through Hogwarts with James on her heels. She knew she stormed into the hospital wing. But she could not remember any of the details.

'They found your son. They found Danny.'

Madam Pomfrey gave her a small, tight smile when she latched onto the matronly nurse. Something was said, some no doubt comforting platitude, but she did not hear it. All she wanted, all she needed, was to see her son. She had to see him, prove to herself that he was okay.

'They found your son. They found Danny. He's alive.'

A wave of magic washed over her mind, and she felt her emotions, just a moment ago so overwhelming, slip away from her fingertips.

"Are you back with us, Lily?" Pomfrey asked, searching her face for something. "I need you here and whole. Danny needs you to keep it together."

"What's wrong?" demanded James. "We were told… What we were told doesn't matter. What's going on?"

The nurse looked back and forth between them, and her voice when she finally answered was hesitant. "He… There is no way to pretty it up, but I think what you need to understand most of all was that he wasn't treated like a guest, or even a prisoner. And he was there for months. James, Lily; I'm sorry to tell you this, but Danny was tortured."

Lily grabbed onto her husband and buried her face in his chest. No. No. Not their baby boy.

'They found your son. They found Danny. He's alive, but he's been hurt something terrible.'

Only when she was sure they both had enough of a grasp on their worry and fear did Pomfrey lead them to a bed that had been hidden behind a curtain. Slipping inside, Lily had to hold back her scream of grief and horror. Danny's hand, his entire right forearm, was gone. Hacked off and replaced with a cap of burn scars just below the elbow. His ribs poked out of his chest and stretched the skin between them with every raspy breath. What looked like every inch of his skin from his neck all the way down to the soles of his feet was littered with strange, twisted runes. The only part of him that had not been carved into was his face, and that was only so that there would be nothing to detract from the empty socket of what had been his left eye.

His right eye was physically intact, but it was was no longer bright and happy. That beautiful green was shadowed and dulled by the horrors that had befallen him.

"Oh, Danny." She reached out and laid her hand on top of his. A twitch ran through him, but other than that he did not react in the slightest. He did not speak. Did not look at her. He continued to stare sightlessly at the curtain beyond her feet. "Madam Pomfrey, what's wrong with him?!"

He acted like Frank, Neville's father. Dear, caring, funny Frank who had been tortured into catatonic insanity. No, her son could not be like that! She would not let it be so!

"Lily. Lily." Hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her from her own distressed fugue. Pomfrey stared at her, almost as if focusing her thoughts with nothing but her own will. "You see what was done to him. The human mind can't take that, not without consequence. Danny has pulled away from the world and is stuck inside his own head. He did it to protect himself from the pain."

Fat, ugly tears rolled down her cheeks.

James's voice was hard and tight. "Can't you do something? Fix it?"

"I'm a school nurse, James. I can heal misapplied transfigurations and minor hexes and jinxes, but the mind? I wouldn't even know where to start."

"You start by convincing him that he is no longer in danger." Lily turned around to see Professor Dumbledore open the curtain and slip inside to the side. "I hope you don't mind my intrusion, but I could not help but overhear what you were saying."

"No, no, it's okay, Professor. We're glad you're here," breathed James with no little relief.

The aging headmaster gave James a small smile before conjuring a chair on the other side of the bed and settling himself into it. "Oh, Danny, my poor boy. What did Voldemort do to you?"

"Do you know… why? All this?" Lily asked with a timid wave at Danny's… everything. "Did he just do it to be cruel, or…?"

"I don't know. Some of it I could see as a precaution should he ever escape. Cutting off his wand hand so he could never fight back. Breaking his mind so he could not be an active hindrance. But the brands? Taking his eye? I just don't know."

She hadn't thought of what losing his hand would mean. Few wizards could cast with their off hand, no matter how much practice was put into it. It would mean that Danny might never be able to use a wand or his magic ever again. He would be crippled in a way beyond just the obvious. His life as a wizard was destroyed.

James cleared his throat. "You said you can help him?"

"I can try, but it will not be easy or gentle." Dumbledore sighed and stroked his beard. "There is a branch of magic, Legilimency, that revolves around entering another's mind. Normally it is used to distinguish truth from lies or ferret out someone's intentions, but taken to its logical conclusion it can be used to pull out and examine people's thoughts and memories. People have a natural wall to keep their thoughts inside their heads, but even just sitting here I can hear Danny's memories of pain. What he went through has reduced that wall to nothing.

"With your permission, I could try entering his mind and coaxing him back to the outside world. It would not be immediate, however, and I cannot make any guarantees. It could succeed fully, it could fail, or anywhere in between."

James pulled Lily close. "Please, Professor. Whatever you can do. Just bring Danny back to us."

For her own part, Lily just hoped Danny would get better, would be able to recognize and respond to them. And hoped that You-Know-Who was suffering for what he did to their son.

Each and every breath of wind that brushed over Voldemort's body made him want to scream, to plead for relief that would never come. The lights of the candles burned what was left of his skin. He could not see, for his eyes felt as though they were nothing more than chunks of charcoal. He could not hear, for the explosion had ruptured his ears. He could not stand, for not only was the effort of moving itself torture but he could feel the blessed numbness in his extremities that meant both legs and his right hand had been shredded by Black's bloody bomb.

He wasn't going to kill her. That was too easy. He was going to torture her slowly, break her down until there was less inside her head than in those people the Dementors Kissed, and then he was going to cut her into pieces and use her for spare parts. Not even being raised as an Inferius was good enough a punishment for that brat's latest stunt.

Another breeze wafted over him. A twitch of his only intact limb – 'intact' in this case being a relative term – and his fingers sent a message to his thankfully unbroken wand. Though he could not see them, he knew the wand had spat out lines of flame that were now floating in the air before him. His followers would see it and obey. Assuming they could read it, that his spell was legible when he could not see and verify it.

Assuming whomever was moving around was one of his followers.

Assuming his followers did not pounce upon him in this moment of weakness.

Snakes were known to eat their own kind.

Minutes of uncertainty passed like hours until the agonizing wind returned. Something was pressed against the back of his hand, and before whomever it was could change their mind, he lashed out as best he could and grabbed onto it. Working with his staff, the same staff enchanted to ease the process of rasping off flakes of his soul to raise his undead army, had made it simpler and faster for him to tear a scrap off and burn it for the power Nyarlathotep offered. His mind was focused, his intention clear and immediate as it could ever be. For just an instant, he felt as though he were too big for his skin, as though he were overflowing into the whole and hale body whose hand he held.

Then the screaming started in earnest.

It felt like plunging into a lake in the middle of winter, and yet when the waters rolled back they left a soft, clean feeling behind. The ache of movement was lessened. Not gone, but lessened. Turning his head made his face split and crack, and turning again forced one eye out of the gap he had made.

His hand scratched off his face, and he looked for the first time at the charred ruin that was all that was left of his body. Of all that had been left of his body, more accurately, and his shriveled fingertips tore at his chest to reveal smooth, white, undamaged skin underneath.

His torso. His head. His arms, pulling a regenerated right hand out of nowhere as though what he left behind was a clever sleeve. Like the great serpents his ancestor had bonded with, he sloughed off his old and ruined skin. His eyes did not even see the mummified body of the prisoner whose life and strength he had stolen so as to be reborn.

"Report."

The Death Eaters assembled before him took wary steps away, shaken by his newfound ability to ignore and recover instantly from what would have been a fatal attack to anyone else. Indeed, it undoubtedly was to the Death Eaters with him when Charlus Potter's body had exploded. Finally Macnair cleared his throat and said, "My lord, the attack… We think it might just have been a distraction. We went to the dungeons afterwards to force Slughorn to create something to heal you. He's… gone."

"How?! Who?!" Voldemort screamed.

"I don't… The only people it could have been was the Aurors."

Of course they stole his captive! Of all the possible disasters to occur, it had to be—!

"And… er… they took the Potter boy, too."

A harsh huff passed his lips, and Macnair hurriedly backed away. "Well," he finally said, closing his eyes and rubbing them, "at least something went according to plan."

Dun dun dun!

Silently Watches out.